Identity area
Reference code
Title
Date(s)
- 3 April 1712-15 March 1719/20 (Creation)
Level of description
Extent and medium
180 pp.
Context area
Name of creator
Biographical history
Thomas White was born in Darlstone [Dalston], Hackney, Middlesex in 1676 to Stephen White (1633-1681) and Hester née Drake. His father was a successful London merchant, who worked in partnership with his uncle, Sir Steven White (d. c. 1678), and three brothers, two of whom were living in Oporto, Portugal. From his uncle, Stephen inherited £3,000 together with lands and tenements in the parish of Aldham, Essex, ‘which lys about 5 mile on this side of Colchester & within a mile of the London road’.
Thomas was one of four children, two of whom died in infancy. His surviving sister, Hester, married Bedingfield Heigham in 1694. As the only surviving son, Thomas inherited considerable wealth from his father following the latter’s premature death from illness when Thomas was five years old. He appears to have trained as a solicitor, with chambers in the Temple, and to have accrued additional land holdings, including ‘an Estate in the Barrony of Clonnelloe in the County of Lymrick, I think within 5 miles of the City containing 1469 acres 12 Rood & 38 pearch Plantation Measure’. He married on 3 June 1718 Olive Western (1699-1753), daughter of Maximilian Western of Abington Hall, and by her had three children, Thomas (1720-1808), Frances (1721-1778) and Olive (b. 1723). He died on 23 November 1742, ‘possessed of a very large Estate’ in Suffolk, as noted by Stanford Mercury (25 November 1742).
Archival history
Immediate source of acquisition or transfer
Content and structure area
Scope and content
3 April 1712-15 March 1719/20
Manuscript letter book bound in vellum, containing copies of letters sent by Thomas White. The book is a sequel to P25/1 but its contents bear a much stronger emphasis on family affairs and topical news than business affairs, which dominated the first volume.
Thomas White continues to follow the progress of the Spanish War of succession and observes that ‘wee live in an age of so much uncertainty, that it is a difficult matter to know what to believe’ (15 May 1712, p. 3). He also makes observations on the political fallout of the controversy surrounding the subsequent peace negotiations, which led to the impeachment of Robert Harley (Earl of Oxford), Henry St John (1st Viscount Bolingbroke) and others in 1715 and the Jacobite rising of 1715-16 and the heightened atmosphere it created across the country. He makes mention of the hanging for treason of William Paul, a clergyman and John Hall, Justice of the Peace for Northumberland and the ‘virulent speeches’ they left behind, ‘contrived on purpose to spread the poison wider, & foment fresh troubles' (17 July 1716, p. 109). He notes the Austro-Turkish war of 1716-1718; and the signing of the triple alliance between Britain, France and the Dutch republic.
Thomas’s letters to his friend and distant relative Sigismund Trafford contain society news and gossip. State lottery continues to feature prominently, and Thomas himself benefits from a modest windfall of £13. He discusses at length the first performance of Joseph Addison’s play Cato and reactions it has caused; and provides Trafford with a list of ‘New Books which are most read’, which include The Barrier-Treaty Vindicated [by Stephen Poyntz], Hiero; or, the Condition of a Tyrant [translated from Xenophon] and A Discourse of Free-thinking [by Anthony Collins] (30 December 1712, p. 14). In subsequent letters he describes the outrage the two last-mentioned books have caused among the clergy and the sermons from the pulpit they have occasioned. Thomas also describes the celebrations caused by the expiration of the three-year preaching ban imposed on the controversial high church clergyman Dr Henry Sacheverell (24 March 1712/3, pp. 23-24). In a later letter Thomas notes that ‘Dr Sacheverell is as great an Idol as ever, on the 31st of January there was such a Crowd to hear him, that they raised Ladders against the Church Windows’ (3 February 1714/5, p. 59). He describes the exceptionally wet summer of 1713 and its consequences, and follows with interest the progress of the general election in July and August 1713. There is a long gap in letters between Jan 1713/4 and September 1714 because Thomas is in France with [Benjamin] Lethieullier, youngest son of Sir Christopher and Lady Jeanne Lethieullier [née de Quesne].
Thomas’s personal life during the course of the letter book was wrought with sorrow. He records the death of his youngest niece [Mary Heigham?] on 13 April 1715 of ‘Rheumatism in her Stomack’ (19 April 1715, pp. 65-66); the death of his sister, Hester Heigham, which occurred on 24 October 1717 (2 November 1717, p. 127); and the death of his friend Lady Jane Lethieullier on 3 April 1718. Thomas’s aunt Margaret Crowther also died during the summer of 1718. Some of the letters deal with testamentary matters arising from her death, including the appointment of new trustees to the deed of settlement concerning the Free School of Weobley established by John Crowther in 1660 (23 January 1719/20, pp. 169-70; 18 February 1719/20, pp. 175-76) and 15 March 1719/20, p. 180).
Happier personal occasions include Thomas’s courtship of Olivia Western, to which he makes oblique references in 1717 and 1718 prior to the couple’s wedding in June 1718. He notes of his wife that ‘I have a great Prospect of being happy with her having chosen her more for the sake of her good qualities than any other Consideration whatsoever, & there are no Ladies in all this great Citty who have had a more serious education that those of that Family’ (3 June 1718, p. 141).
Following his marriage and the death of his aunt, Thomas’s letters are limited mainly to business matters, primarily the buying, letting and upkeep of property, ejectment of unwanted tenants, the collection of rents and tithes and the sale of trees. He also gives instructions for the building of a new farm house ‘of four Rooms on a Floor with Chambers above & Garrets over, & sellars [sic] underneath, & proper offices adjoining’ at Wormsley Grange, Herefordshire (27 February 1719/20, pp. 176-177), possibly the subsequent birth place of the classical scholar and theorist of the Picturesque, Richard Payne Knight.
Thomas White’s correspondents, in alphabetical order, are as follows:
Daniel Arthur
Paul Bertrand
James Brown
Mr — Browne ‘Attorney at Law at Bromyard in Herefordshire’
Mr — Carter ‘a Carpenter in Hereford’
Charles Childe ‘in Bath’
Samuel Collet ‘at the Postern in the Green Yard near Moregate’
Hannah Collins
John Copley
John Corder ‘at Stoke near Nayland in Suffolk’
Margaret Crowther
Benjamin Fallows ‘at Maldon in Essex’
John Fenwick ‘at Billingsgate’
John Floyd ‘at the Grainge at Wormsley near Weobly in Herefordshire by Weobly Bagg’
Thomas Franklin
Percyvall Hart ‘at Lollingstone in Kent by the Dartford Bagg’
David Jones
Rebecca Jones ‘at Dalstone’
John Littell
Williamson Lloyd ‘in Colchester’
Matthew Martin ‘at Wivenhoe in Essex’
Samuel Martin ‘at Whistaston to be let at Mr Carpenter’s a mercer in Weobly in Herefordshire’
Thomas Matthew ‘in Walbrooke’
Andrew Meade
Richard Morris ‘at Dalstone in Hackney’
Nicholas Morse ‘in Hoggesdon’
Richard Neave
John Newton
Nicholas North ‘in Mare Street in Hackney’
Francis Ram ‘at Stoke near Nayland in Suffolk’
Mary Ram
Mr — Robertson, ‘to be left at the post office in Lymrick’
Augustine Rock, merchant in Bristol
Richard Salwey ‘in Ludlow in Shropshire’
Joseph Sewell
Richard Skikelthorp
John Towns ‘at Stoke near Nayland in Suffolk’
Sigismund Trafford
Hannah Tuthill ‘at Kilmore near Lymrick’
John Tuthill ‘at Faha near Lymrick’
George Wade ‘at Christ College in Cambridge’ and ‘in Hartford’
John Walker ‘at Dalstone’
Abraham Ward ‘at Stoke near Nayland in Suffolk’
Edmond [Edmund?] Watts ‘in Watling Street’
Robert Weston ‘in Norfolk Street’
Mrs Wheake ‘at Marselles’
Jane Yates
The letter book contains White’s own pagination throughout, but there is an error in numbering, with p. 180 numbered as 110.
Appraisal, destruction and scheduling
Accruals
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Conditions of access and use area
Conditions governing access
Conditions governing reproduction
Language of material
- Béarla
Script of material
Language and script notes
Physical characteristics and technical requirements
Bound manuscript volume with damaged covers and minor worming to pages but in otherwise good condition. Use book cushion.
Finding aids
Allied materials area
Existence and location of originals
Existence and location of copies
Available digitally on the University of Limerick Digital Library at https://doi.org/10.34966/uldl.e2kv-4n37.